Papua New Guinea Overflights: Air Niugini Radar Contact and Wewak Witnesses (1985)

Wewak sits on the north coast of Papua New Guinea, in East Sepik Province. Flights from its airport to the capital, Port Moresby, head southeast across the Sepik basin and the central ranges. Angoram, on the lower Sepik River, lies early on that route.

Thursday, 24 January 1985. Evening.

An Air Niugini pilot had just taken off from Wewak en route to Port Moresby. Over Angoram, the pilot's radar picked up "aircraft flying south to north at high altitude and high speed." The cable does not say what kind of radar it was. Most likely it was the plane's own weather radar. Across the country, others were looking up. Reports described "fast-moving objects with lights, contrails, and noise." Contrails were seen from various points around PNG. At 1900 local time, one aircraft moving north to south. At 2200, six to eight aircraft traveling south to north.

No one recorded a shape, a size or the colour of the lights. To the people who saw them, they were aircraft. High, fast, and unidentified.

In Wewak, the reports landed hard. The local officer of the National Intelligence Organization, the NIO, reported that local residents had been "frightened by overflights." The fear reached the top. The Provincial Premier called a public meeting on the subject. The Prime Minister, "weekending in his electoral district," attended. The cable names neither man. In January 1985 the Prime Minister was Michael Somare, whose seat was in East Sepik. Jonathan Sengi was the province's premier from 1983 to 1987.

28 January 1985. The NIO made an informal inquiry to the US Embassy in Port Moresby. Had American military aircraft overflown Papua New Guinea? The question pointed at B-52s, the US Strategic Air Command bombers based on Guam. The embassy checked its records and phoned the 43rd Strategic Wing at Andersen AFB, Guam. Then it answered: "BASED ON OUR RECORDS AND TELCON WITH 43SW, WE HAVE TOLD NIO WE KNEW OF NO B-52 OVERFLIGHTS AND NO U.S. AIRCRAFT IN PNG AIRSPACE ON JANUARY 24."

The cable, PORT MORESBY 00199, went to USCINCPAC in Honolulu, with copies to the State Department and the embassies in Canberra and Jakarta. It is attributed to Ambassador Paul F. Gardner. It called the information "very sketchy," yet noted that the NIO placed "some credence" in the pilot's radar report. It asked USCINCPAC for clarification. If a reply came, it has not been released.

The NIO suspected foreign military jets. The United States said they were not American. No official verdict followed. No radar tapes, printouts or ground radar data are known. No photographs, no physical traces. The case remains unexplained in the record.

For four decades the cable was effectively unknown. On 8 May 2026 it appeared in the Department of War's first PURSUE release of UAP files, listed as State Department UAP Cable 1, released in full. ABC Pacific Beat covered it later that month, alongside the far more famous 1959 Boianai sightings. Some coverage claimed missionaries saw the objects, or that embassy staff witnessed luminous craft. The cable says neither. It records only what Papua New Guinea's intelligence service passed on. A pilot's radar. Lights and contrails in the night sky. And a town frightened enough to bring its Prime Minister to a public meeting.